by the way. sorry about dropping out of the forum. would have been nice to do those updates you were thinking about but I was having problems at work. ended up getting fired. hated the place so i was glad to go. didn't know who my boss was 1/2 the time. they gave me program specs on napkins and expected me to find files on the company servers without any documentation or guidance. My main job was to speed up a program that took over 140 hours to run. I got it running in just under 40 hours and they complained it wasn't fast enough. Couple stupid projects without specs and a few months later they canned me. Even HR couldn't tell me who my boss was at the time. lol ;-)

we need to upgrade everyone, but the reality is that this ain't exactly likely. i'm thinking that, realistically speaking, if we can get a wing or a pg who can attack the defense and break it down we'll be a lot better. preferably both positions. after that, a defensive big. i''ll take a bargs trade or a bosh s&t - either way we keep an offensive big that can stretch teh floor and add a low post bruiser guy. some perimiter d is the 3rd step, but that could happen in the same dude that is the penetrator.

really, i just think we're a good 2-way perimiter player and a solid big man away from being good. jose has to go because he's a major liability, and turk could go to, but if we address the perimiter and inside d and lose jose i think hedo can be a lot more effective for us. i just think i'd rather make these tweeks and make a run at the playoffs than blow the whole thing up and suffer through another 3-4 year complete rebuild.

I've thought about it and the team needs a lot of changes to the starting 5.

Need a better PG, SG, SF and C. So ya even Bargs has to go. I like his offence but they need a regular defensive center that can rebound. Besides they need to give up quality to get upgrades in other positions.

Turk and Jose have to go. DD at SG is ok but needs upgrading if possible. If they can keep Bosh then that's set. I wouldn't mind seeing Bargs at PF but he needs to get a lot meaner and not play center.

i'm only looking forward to the jays to take my mind off the raps. the last few weeks have been an embarrassment.

that said, i'm not nearly as pessimistic as you are. i think hedo can be a good player for us if we just had a better starting pg that wasn't a complete redundancy with him in the lineup. i think jose will be paired with bosh in a s&t (at least i hope so). i think bargs is still a good player and his contract is reasonable. i love what i've seen from amir and weems and jack. all guys i'd love to keep around. i don't think we're in that bad a spot considering how bad turkoglu has been. tough year, but i don't think it will be 4 more years of being this terrible. i really don't.

if we package jose and bosh and get some space and a role player or two plus maybe a pick we can rebuild around bargs and derozan and a few others in a way that is more balanced.

and back to the jays for a second, although they won't be good this year, they have some great pieces to build around. i'm excited for the future for them. that team has a great deal more hope than the raps or leafs do.

i agree with you on some of that, but there are a lot of issues i just don't see the way you do.

first, i don't see jack as a 2 unless it's just spot minutes, and roko has so much to prove before i'd consider giving him anything but garbage minutes. jose at 30 minutes and jack at 18 at the pg + another 5-8 at the sg is about perfect, imo.

while d is definitely the biggest problem, i am quite happy we didn;t keep marion. he didn't want to be in toronto, for starters. also, he's the kind of guy that will get worse as he gets older, and, imo, that will happen soon. his first step and his quick hops have both started to deteriorate already, and that's the stuff that fades fast, b/c hedo doesn't rely on that stuff he's more of a guy that we can lock into for a longer term. in 3 years i'd still be happy with hedo, but i think marion will be terrible. that gives us only 1 year with a questionable turkoglu before he becomes a valuable $12 or so expiring contract. i'm fine with that. it's so hard to imagine what the team will look like 4 years from now anyways.

the help that turk provides on offense is not so much about scoring per se... in that, i mean that it's not about how many touches we have to spread around. it's more about the ability to create when it comes down to those clutch touches. no more cb iso's on 5 defenders. if bosh touches the ball in teh clutch, it's only after hedo/jose have already broken down the d. that is a major difference from last year, and probably the most important thing we needed to fix.

also, i think, at this stage of his career, marion is an overrated defender, and turk is a underrated one. that is not to say that hedo is a better defender than marion - far from it - but more that hedo can do what it takes in a good team defensive scheme, and marion is not such a stopper that independent of a good scheme he's a real difference maker.

we will lose some of our fast break ability and our quick offensive rebounding, but i think we'll go back to being a solid half court team, which i prefer for the playoffs anyways. the media keeps talking about us as a fast break team, but i just don't see it. we don't have any real fast break guys remaining, except maybe dd, which is perfect for the kind of role he'll play.

so, d will be key, but marion didn't make such a difference that we wouldn't need a complete team defensive commitment anyways.

i agree that 4-6 is probable. top 3 is possible, but the team will really need to gel and bosh will have to emerge as an A type player. i think he can do that with the right supporting cast. frankly, i think that most people that see him as a B think that because they expect him to do things that no pf is ever expected to do, like create game winning plays all by himself. with a good team behind him, even at 4 out of 5 positions, i think the d is less focused on him and i think he can operate more within a realistic framework for his skill set and his position. he will certainly have to improve, but if he does, look out. we'll be tough.

that last sentence you wrote is spot on. size will be a big deal, deep bench will make a huge difference over last year, and the ability to rest starters and keep scoring starters on the floor will be invaluable. as i said, i'm optimistic. this is a great combination of players, and considering what my expectations were going into the offseason, i couldn't be happier. i think getting rid of marion allows us to build a team around bosh. keeping him would have just been a matter of adding a couple of guys around a team that only won 33 games. it's time for a new identity. i'm happy we went for a near complete makeover while keeping the main core intact. that's not easy to do from the financial position we had.